he goes still.
All I have to do is sneak out while he’s sleeping.
I start to edge out a couple times and lose it. If he sees me . . . if he sees me. The third time, I almost make it before he shifts. I freeze, not breathing, but he stays asleep.
I don’t move again until I see the closet door crack open. Then I inch out from under the bed. My heel crinkles a candy wrapper, but he doesn’t wake up. Slowly, I rise. November emerges, too, a quiet silhouette.
She’s holding a pair of scissors. Where did she find them?
Our eyes meet.
She stands over him. The moonlight from the window falls on the ugly ridge of his nose, the zit tucked beneath his lower lip, the stray hairs under his chin. I stare until my eyes water. The movement of his chest up and down seems so flimsy. Like I could press my finger there with the barest pressure and stop it from ever lifting again.
Do it, I say without speaking. The scissor blades are bright.
November’s small and shivering. She lifts the scissors. Her arm lowers. She shakes her head, again and again, moves next to me.
Presses them into my hand.
I’m nothing, so I can do anything. I could stop him.
He twitches in bed. I don’t blink, letting my eyes blur so I don’t have to look at the details of his face. This is it. The moment before and after.
If I were Joy, I could do it.
My hand trembles.
But I’m not Joy. And I’m not nothing.
I’m me. Forever. The worst possible thing I could ever be.
I bolt, fast and quiet, out his bedroom door, down the stairs, and across the lawn. November’s coming after me, but I’m too quick for her. I half run, half stagger into the woods. I lose myself in the trees, wrenching through bushes, kicking branches, kicking everything, breaking things in the night.
I don’t know how long it takes November to find me. When she steps out from between the trees, she takes me by the arm, tries to lead me back toward the road. I shove her away.
“Grace,” she pleads.
I hate my name so much. I’m not graceful at all.
“There was nothing about me in there.” My voice flames in the rustling quiet. “I thought if he could do that to me, he at least loved—” I bite off the word with my teeth, shatter it.
“There was no song,” I whisper. “I was just another girl.”
“That’s how he gets us.” November’s still holding my arm. Her words break. “It’s so nice, having somebody think you’re special. That you’re worth making art about.”
Like Cassius did. But Cassius must have been lying, too.
“You told Joy what he did to you, right?” November asks. “You told.”
“Obviously,” I rasp. “She’s my sister.”
“Is she . . . okay?”
“Of course she’s okay.” I kick at a fallen branch. “Why wouldn’t she be okay?”
“She cares about you a lot.”
“I know,” I yell.
“I just thought she might feel . . .” Her voice trails off. “Guilty.”
“Why the hell would she feel guilty? It’s not her fault. She didn’t do anything. That’s ridiculous.” I can’t breathe. “Does she think I’m the kind of person who’d blame her? Is that what you think of me?”
“Grace,” she says softly.
“Because that’s not how I feel,” I snarl. “I love my sister and everything is fine so just leave. Us. Alone.”
I turn sharply and start walking toward the road. I can see it through the trees. I don’t need her to drive me back. I don’t need anyone to do anything for me ever again.
SEVENTEEN
October 24
Joy
“GRACE’S RIGHT. SHE HAS TO BE.” PRESTON stares unseeingly at his bedroom walls. “November knew about Grace, she was at the party, she knew you didn’t remember anything . . . it all fits.”
I’m flat on my back on his bed, gazing up at the faded glow-in-the-dark star stickers on his ceiling.
“When I woke up this morning, there was this second between me opening my eyes and me remembering everything, and I felt fine,” I say. “Normal. As if none of this ever happened.”
“You slept last night? That’s good!”
I shrug.
“What are you going to do?” he asks quietly.
I curl up, pressing my knees into my eyelids so hard that my head throbs. It’s nothing compared to the pain November must’ve felt, every single time we passed Adam in the halls and all she did was sneer.
“Are you going to confront her?” Preston asks.
I flatten out again, the pulse behind my eyelids